U.S. Soldiers Bring Home Stories, Videos of Atrocities

Share

U.S. Soldiers Bring Home Stories, Videos of Atrocities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO7xwnZA124In 1971, Vietnam vets, frustrated by the lack of official investigation of the atrocities they had both witnessed and perpetrated, gathered to provide their own testimony. Their harrowing stories were captured in a film, Winter Soldier, that, due to its explosive nature, never reached theaters or TV. (It's now available on DVD).

Some 37 years later, anti-war vets, thanks to the Internet, should have far fewer problems getting their timely stories out into the world. At Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, held last weekend in Washington, soldiers presented videos (Michael Moore posted this one, with U.S. soldiers blasting two mosques, apparently just for fun, along with another featuring a soldier bragging that he "just killed half of the population of Northern Ramadi. Fuck the red tape, it doesn't matter" ) that surely will be YouTubed. The group Iraq Veterans Against the War, which organized the event, seems to be having technical problems: their liveblog and video testimony pages are both down, but The Real News channel has posted several already.

With consumer-grade cameras wielded both by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and by family members and the media in Washington, expect some harrowing images and testimony to emerge. Should these videos reach enough Americans, they will reignite the smoldering debate over American military conduct that began with the Abu Ghraib photos and the controversies over Guantanamo.

Update: video and full audio of the events can be found at KPFA-FM's The War Comes Home project.